While everyone was getting ready to go berry picking, I offered to stay home and help Mem rip carpet rags, but she insisted that I go.
We all walked past the sugarhouse to the neighboring woods. We avoided the stinging nettles, stepped over a dead log lying over the path, and eventually came into the pasture where the cows grazed. We made sure there were no bulls among them.
Joe found a patch of berries and told everyone to pick there. He said, “Lomie and I will go that way and see what we can find.” He pointed out towards a field away from the cows, where the grass was tall.
When we were in a place far enough from the others so we couldn't hear them, Joe said, “So, have you thought about what I said?”
“Yes.”
“Well?”
“I don't want to. You are my brother. I don't think brothers and sisters are supposed to do that.”
“But, that's all the more reason. You and I love each other. So it's an act of love.”
I picked apart a leaf in my hand. It felt as though someone had reached in and tangled my insides. I could only think of a feeble protest. I said, “But, if that's true, then why was Mem so upset when she found out you and Sarah were doing it?”
“She doesn't understand that I need practice before I get married. You'd be doing me a favor, because I want to know how to do this for my wife someday.”
“How do other people get practice?”
“I don't know about other people. I only know what I need.”
I didn't say anything, but stared at the tall grass around my dress.
“You know, the others are going to wonder where we are pretty soon. If you don't want to, that's fine. I'll just get my practice from someone else.”
I had so many mixed-up feelings, I didn't know what to do. I really didn't want Joe to go back to being mean to me. Maybe, if I agreed . . .
I asked, “So what do you want me to do?”
“Take off your underwear and lie down on the grass.”
I did, with the eng black dress up around my waist. I felt like Katherine looked when she was three years old, having her diaper changed. Then Joe uncovered his penis. I could not believe my eyes. It was pale white, and so big it looked as though it belonged on a horse. All I could think of was how it would hurt if he tried to push it inside me.
From the woods, Lizzie called and said they couldn't find any more berries. I thought I was saved.
“Go towards that big oak; there should be some at the edge of the field!” Joe called.
In a moment, we heard their voices going in the other direction.
Joe lay on top of me. He tried to push his penis into me. It felt like a knife.
“Ow,” I said.
“Am I hurting you?”
“Yes, you are. I don't think it will fit.”
He stood up. There was blood on his penis. “Is that from you?” he asked.
“I don't know.” No wonder it felt like he was using a knife.
He got out his red handkerchief and gave it to me. He let me clean the blood off myself, and then he cleaned himself. The others called again.
Joe said, “Maybe we need to give it up.” He threw the handkerchief into the grass, pulled up his pants, and buttoned them. Then he turned and walked away.
On the way home, I walked as though my body wasn't mine. The sting and that awful, dry pain between my legs were not as bad as the feeling that Joe had hurt a place deep inside I didn't know was there.
Somehow I walked home. I went right to my room, curled into a tight ball on my bed, and cried.
Sometime later, Mem came up to my room. “Lomie, what's the matter?” When I rolled over, I could see flour on her apron from the pies she was making with the berries.
“Are you sick?”
I shook my head, then nodded.
“What's wrong?”
I couldn't lie. “Joe—bothered me. In the blackberry patch.”
Mem got quiet for a moment; then she asked, “Well, why did you let him?”
Mem's words struck me like whip. I retreated to the outhouse and sat there crying into my hands. I hadn't expected Mem to make the hurt feel better. No one could do that. But I hadn't expected her to make it go deeper, either.
Mem called my name from the kitchen window. I managed to catch my breath, and decided to pee before I went out. The second I started, I screamed. It felt like someone had stabbed me with a hot needle. I stopped and didn't want to pee, ever again.
“What's wrong, Lomie?” Mem asked. She had come out when she heard me scream. She opened the door and looked at me. She asked, “What's the matter?”
“It hurts to pee!” I gasped.
Mem looked worried. She said, “But you can't hold it back, either. That would make you sick.”
I waited until hours later, when I could wait no longer. It was so painful, I felt like I would die.
The next day, Mem asked me in an anxious whisper, “Does it still hurt when you pee?” I said no, even though it did. I cringed each time, until it finally stopped hurting, several days later.
THE MEMORY OF THIS event makes me as angry with Mem as I am with Joe. Perhaps she did reprimand him when I was not around, but she never retracted her question that essentially blamed me. And what made it worse was that Joe had made a show of giving me a choice. I wished I had said no, because the consequences of that could have been no worse than what they turned out to be—unless he had forced himself on me. But now I realized the coercion was as psychologically damaging, if not more so, than the physical force would have been. In remembering this, I still wish I had not “let him.” As it is, I will forever blame myself. The focus is not on the act of Joe putting me in that position, but rather my “consent” that I gave out of fear. Joe was always very adept at deflecting the blame for his wrongful activities away from himself. When he shot Shep, our family dog, he claimed it was because Datt told him to do it. It is true that in those days it was acceptable to get rid of the dog when the neighbors complained that our dog had wandered the neighborhood and impregnated their dog. Of course, another acceptable solution was to train our dog not to wander the neighborhood, even if we had to keep him chained.
Joe told the story afterwards of how he took Shep into the woods, and when he pointed the rifle at Shep, the dog tilted his head and wagged his tail, as if he was asking why this was happening. Joe then ended the story by saying, “It was everything I could do to pull that trigger.” This was designed to get us to feel sorry for Joe, not the dog. It must have been effective for everyone else in the family, because no one else blames Joe for having shot Shep. However, the two details I will never forget are that Joe had a brand new rifle at the time, and that he never even bothered to bury Shep. His blond fur and bones lay in the thicket in the woods for a long time. I never liked walking by there. It was too creepy.
Joe seemed to want to dominate animals the way he dominated people. Not long after he shot Shep, he brought home Spike. Joe first encountered Spike when he was walking out across a field, near one of the houses where he was working with the carpenter's crew, when this German shepherd dog came up and growled at him. Joe kept on going, as if he wasn't afraid, and Spike came up and planted himself in front of Joe's legs and wouldn't let him move ahead.
Perhaps it was the challenge of gaining control over an intelligent and powerful animal that intrigued Joe. I don't know what deal he made with Spike's owner, but he brought Spike home as his own dog several weeks later. Spike had a vicious bark and lunged on his chain whenever visitors arrived. He was usually chained to the woodshed door. The number of visits from our friends dwindled.
Spike was very protective and loyal to all of us in the family. One day he actually protected me from Joe. The incident leading up to it actually had to do with Mem and Datt, but as usual, Joe got involved.
It all started one day during mittag when I was alone with Mem and Datt, the first fall after I graduated from eighth grade and could no longer go to school. Mem had made a ste
w the night before that tasted to me like pig slop, and I told her so. She hadn't said anything, but I could tell by her slumped shoulders that I had hurt her feelings. She was warming it up for our lunch. I complained and asked if I could make myself something else. She grudgingly said yes. I made rivel soup for myself, which is a milk-based soup with drops of a mixture of eggs and flour. The soup thickens a bit and the lumps of egg and flour cook to taste like noodles. Rivel soup rarely tasted so good to me as I tested it for the right amount of salt and pepper. I had my own nice bowlful, just the right consistency. I put it at my place at the table. I sat with Mem and Datt as we did our Händt nunna. The soup smelled warm and good.
Datt raised his hands off his lap, grabbed his glass of water, and took a drink. Then he asked, “What is that?” as he pointed to Mem's stew.
“Leftovers from last night,” Mem answered.
“What's that?” Datt asked, as he pointed to my bowl.
“Rivel soup,” Mem said.
“I'd rather have that,” Datt said, pointing to my bowl again.
Mem reached over and took my bowl of soup and put it in front of Datt. I sat there and stared at the empty place where my bowl had been and felt my anger build up into a rage. I imagined grabbing that bowl of soup and pouring it over Datt's bald head, since he wanted it so badly. Maybe I would save half to pour on Mem's head and watch it drip down over her head covering. Instead, I got up from my place at the table to make more soup. I slammed the cupboard doors. Each bang released only a little of my anger, which I felt as a heavy pressure in my chest. Mem said, “Lomie, you better stop that if you know what is good for you!” in her solid voice. I left the house because I didn't trust myself, or Mem and Datt, if I threw a chair through the window, which is what I felt like doing.
I didn't have a direction, but I walked the path through the woods that went out to Forest Road. I clenched my fists and wanted to scream, How dare they? One of them is as bad as the other. I'd rather have that, indeed! I gritted my teeth together, thinking, Mem pretends she is on our side when we talk about how unfair it is that men are the boss of women and girls. Now I know the truth!
I imagined myself going out on Forest Road and hitchhiking far away, to anywhere. I kept walking in that direction. I came to the edge of the field, and there I lost my courage. I sat down in the high grass under a maple tree and pulled a weed and chewed on it. I had forgotten until then how hungry I was. Still, I vowed I was going to stay away from home long enough to make them think I had run away, since I didn't actually have the guts to do it. I heard a car on the gravel road, then the smooth sound of the tires when it hit the paved road at the township line. The township line was on the bend in the road, just before the car came into my sight. The car passed by the line of trees along the road. The colorful branches looked as though they were moving as I watched the car pass. While it was visible, I didn't feel alone. It passed out of sight, and I listened to the whir of the tires on the pavement until I could no longer hear it. Then I was alone again. A bee buzzed around me and I held still. It buzzed off into the middle of the field. I lay down and looked up into the red, gold, and green branches of the maple. I looked at the pattern of the maple leaves, and then I dozed off.
At dusk I slowly awoke to the sound of Joe calling me from far away. There was a soft rain falling. I didn't answer. I hoped if I stayed still, he wouldn't find me. He came closer, calling out my name. I lay still. Spike was with him, and he came over to me and sniffed my face and wagged his tail. I knew Joe would find me now. I sat up.
“Why didn't you answer me?” Joe asked.
“I was sleeping,” I said.
“Then what woke you up?”
“Spike put his wet nose in my face.”
“You mean you didn't hear me call you?”
“No,” I lied. I hoped Joe wouldn't press me on it. He had a way of proving my lies, then punishing me. This one he couldn't prove unless he got me to admit it. I was determined not to. I'd use his example and look him in the eyes and lie with a straight face if I had to.
Joe said Mem and Datt were worried about me and we needed to go home. I knew I had no choice except to walk home with him. As we walked past the trash pile with Spike walking alongside us, Joe said, “You should be thanking me for finding you.”
I said something defiant without thinking, and even as I said it the fear crept up my scalp and prickled at the top of my head. I said, “Yeah, what if I am not thankful, then what?”
Joe stepped in front of me and slapped me across the face. Spike growled. Joe looked at Spike and said, “Spike, it's okay.” Spike's hair stood up on the back of his neck and he growled at Joe again.
Joe started walking really fast, away from Spike and me. I petted Spike's back and said, “Good boy, Spike.” I purposely lagged behind Joe. By the time I got home, he had already told Mem and Datt he had found me. I went straight to bed without eating supper.
THE ONE TIME JOE could not shove the blame on anyone else was when his rabbits died. Several years ago, I wrote down my memories of this incident and sent it to Mem. Her response was telling. She wrote back that she had cried for three days. Joe finally got the story out of her about why she was so sad. She later said to me, “He helped me realize that this happened a long time ago, and that he was a mere school boy, different from who he is now. I burned your letter, because I didn't want to think about it anymore.”
The summer I was ten and Joe was thirteen, my sisters and I noticed that when we came near the rabbit pen where Joe's two young bunnies lived, they would beg us for food. One afternoon, Sarah and I were gathering chamomile near the chicken coop, for food to play “house” in the corncrib. The chickens made their afternoon noises, “bawk, bawk, baawk . . .” The pigs grunted in their pen behind the chicken coop, and the horses stomped in their stalls every so often to keep the flies off their shoulders, where their tails couldn't reach. Beside the chicken coop was a rabbit pen made of the same wire mesh as the walls of the corncrib. Both a white bunny with pink ears, and a coal black one lived in the pen. They begged us for food by standing on their hind legs at the cage door, twitching their noses. They crawled over one another in their eagerness to eat the pig's ear leaves, clover, and lettuce we gave them. They ate quickly and begged for more. We could not figure out why the rabbits were so hungry. We thought Joe was feeding them, because they always had water in their bowl, and feeding and watering went together. We thought they might be sick, because they looked so thin under fur that had lost its luster.
One day, I asked Joe why his rabbits were so hungry.
He demanded, “Have you been feeding my rabbits?”
I thought about lying, because I could imagine the slap across my face if I told the truth. I also thought about trying to run away from him, but I knew he liked that because he could show me how much stronger and faster he was.
“Yes,” I said.
“You stop feeding those rabbits! Those are my rabbits!” Joe said, with such vehemence I knew I wouldn't be feeding them again.
I didn't go near the rabbit pen again.
One day, as I sat at the round oak table in the kitchen, eating Mem's warm buttermilk cookies, I heard that Joe's rabbits had died. When I heard how they died, I stopped chewing and felt like I was going to throw up. Joe had been doing an experiment to see how long it would take for rabbits to starve to death.
I left the cookie on the table and walked numbly out of the house and into the woods, past the compost pile by the rotted stump, then past the leaf pile, without thinking about where I was going. When the shock wore off, tears came—quietly at first, and then they built up. I fell to my knees in a thicket, and my sobs nearly choked me. I hugged myself and rocked back and forth. “Why didn't I feed them?” I asked out loud. Then my crying came from down deep, pushing up through my throat in long, keening wails. I was more afraid of Joe than ever. If he could kill rabbits, could he also kill me? Maybe one of these times he would beat me so hard, I would die.
“I was remembering the things Joe has done in the past.”
“Like what?”
“Like the time he starved his rabbits and the time he molested me.”
“What brings that to mind?”
“Because after you left, Joe apologized for the things he has done in the past.”
David said, “Wow, that's a big thing. Has he ever done that before?”
“No.”
“Do you think he was sincere?”
“If I go by his tears and the emotion with which he said it, yes. He was most likely sincere, at least in the moment. But then again, I remember times in the past when he used his tears as a way to get what he wanted. He clearly wants me to forgive and pardon him for the things he has done in the past. I think what he really wants is for me to trust him, too.”
“And do you?”
“I certainly do not pardon or trust him. And it depends on one's definition of forgiveness, as to whether I forgive him. The Amish definition is to ‘forgive and forget.’ By that, they mean that you wipe the slate clean, and you give the person the same chance to do better as if they had done no wrong in the first place. In other words, you are required to trust that person. To me, this seems as if you are making yourself vulnerable for more hurt. I like the definition of forgiveness that my counselor taught me—that you basically forgo or give up the right to hurt back the person who hurt you. By this definition, I have forgiven Joe. I wish him no ill, but it does not mean I trust him. In order for me to fully forgive or trust someone after I have been wronged, I have to understand how it came about that the person did what he did by putting myself in his shoes. I now understand how it was that Datt became violent, for example. He literally could not do anything differently than he did, with his mental illness and his level of intelligence. But for some reason I have never been able to put myself in Joe's shoes or understand why or how he could do all the things he did.”
“What do you consider the worst thing he has done?”
Why I Left the Amish Page 11